


6 Revisions

by minnominate



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Community: Meme of Interest, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Frottage, Hacking, Kink Meme, M/M, Math Kink, Power Play, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-10
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 02:44:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/756067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minnominate/pseuds/minnominate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't normally touch John. Touches flow all one way between them. Harold watches with interest the way John relaxes minutely into the contact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Trembling Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rheasilvia (Sylvia)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylvia/gifts).



> Prompt: 
> 
> When Finch and Reese go undercover in a club / at a resort / at a billionaire get-together, Reese is not cast as Finch's armcandy. It's the other way around, with Finch being the trophy boyfriend of millionaire Reese.
> 
> This takes a bit of set-up, but there are ways! For example, it could be a get-together of billionaire businessmen in the software industry, and Reese's cover identity is that of an IT tycoon who isn't actually good with the techy stuff, but did manage to woo the right boyfriend with his money and charms...? And of course, everyone at the conference ends up incredibly jealous (and lustful) after some demonstrations of Finch's mental acuity.
> 
> Or it could be some other situation entirely!
> 
> ~[Rhea Silvia on the kink meme](http://meme-of-interest.dreamwidth.org/1507.html?thread=58339#cmt58339)

"How did I agree to this?" Harold mutters to John as they are nodded through the conference center doors. 

John bumps him and said, "What's that? Can't quite–" and then begins striding forward to shake hands with the flunkie coming their way.

Harold taps his earpiece. "I said: this is a terrible idea and we should leave immediately." He watches John's shoulders crumple a little with laughter as he introduces them both to the woman with the clipboard.

Harold has successfully avoided places like this his entire life. He looks into the hall. Stations are set out in half circles, with computers in messy groups: here a group of boys crouch over laptops, there two sharp suited women are building lego cases round about a hundred Pis and arguing about something intensely; up on the stage two figures, hidden by the crowd around them, are coding something that is projected on the huge screen.

His earpiece pips. John's voice comes in, softly amused. "I do my best you know," he says. "But there's no way in hell I can take your cover at a hackathon." And then he is there at Harold's side as Ellie Higson (078-05-1120) from Kleiner Perkins walks straight toward him like a bee seeking honey.

Harold looks up into Ms Higson's face as she mouths to John "Is this the guy?" and he feels, rather than sees, John's slow, satisfied nod of confirmation. 

He would be lying if he said he didn't like that.

Ms Higson is small; he looks down into her bright, heart shaped face, and says hello and how good to meet and all that. He is still mostly caught up in his overwhelming desire to walk right out the fire exit, but through the hubbub he hears "nonsequential insertions over the allocation" and "reindexing right through each aux" and Harold smiles. He grips Ms Higson's hand firmly. "Oh yes," he tells her. "I'm familiar with big data. Really _big_ data."

He sits; there's a computer right there with a decent chair so he takes that one. He lays his phone on the desk and –he thinks pretty smoothly– flips the jammer he set up this morning so nothing is recorded. He runs his eyes over the file Ms Higson has flicked from her tablet onto the screen, blows out a breath, and starts diagramming.

He loves this part, always, and he dives down into the algorithm as he sketches out a tree in Processing, lets himself defocus and see the problem extend itself into four dimensions. Behind him, Ms Higson snorts and drawls, "Yeah, a B-tree, great inno–" and he can't help but feel a little thrill of pleasure as she falls silent. She reaches past him and flips on the display mirror and then all around them there are little noises: someone whistles, long and low, someone says loudly: "Yeah? What's the big deal?"

Mr Reese –Mr Rivera today– is standing by him, and he's got this smile on his face like he's won the lotto. Harold can see it in the reflection on the monitor and he really likes that smile. He feels like he'd maybe like to make John smile like that some more. Even though he knows this is just the cover– John is just playing his role – but he can't help but...Oh hell. He brings up another terminal and inverts the cameras on all the phones that are being held up recording him and there are startled exclamations and curses fanning out in a shockwave as each person realizes they are recording themselves instead of him.

He'd jammed them already. That, he admits to himself, was just showing off.

Up on the stage, the crowd is no longer watching the code battle; they're all fixated on the mirror of Harold's screen. Some smartmouth says, "Holy God I'm gonna come in my pants," and then John steps nearer, puts his big hand on the back of Harold's neck and murmurs, "Gotta hand it to you. Pretty much everyone in this room wishes they were allowed to touch you right now, Finch." 

His voice still has that soft crackle of amusement in it but there's something else as well. An unsteadiness that makes Harold shiver a little. And then he realizes what John's words mean and says, "Who's not convinced?"

John steps back, deftly taking in the room in the most natural movement. He walks like he's stretching his legs and then taps open their line and says in an undertone, "Two women not paying attention to anything but this...I think they're legos? A whole bunch of people milling round booths not watching. Your six o'clock, guy in a suit, maybe thirties. He's watching the screen all right but he does not look happy about it. And he's moving."

Harold opens his mouth to respond but John is already there. "Yeah, I'm on him. Keep doing... whatever it is you're doing." 

So he does that, and it's easy to keep their attention. It's not so much that the work is good, though it is that, he supposes; it's that it's so different. The habit of discretion has isolated him so completely his code is like Darwin's finches: a divergent species.

John taps in again and says, "I've got eyes on the suit but I can't bluejack his phone."

"Well I should hope not," he replies primly. But he thinks for a second– this damned display mirror is a cramp– then says, "Send a picture, Mr Reese, and I'll see what I can do."

He'd written the bots to cover Mr Finch while he sat in meetings as Mr Wren. Harold knows the value of at least the appearance of omniscience. He looks around surreptitiously, subvocalises to his phone, forwards the picture to an unlisted number. His bot hacks the ID card printer at the front desk, tracks back into the client list and runs that through Maltego. (Harold is inordinately fond of Maltego; he sometimes feels guilty for crippling it so comprehensively.)

The bot finds the weakness and sends back the exploit. He executes and John confirms, "I'm in." And then they both demonstrate their competencies, for hours, until Harold feels almost breathless from it.

When the evening rolls around they go into the ballroom arm in arm. John's tux slides over the gun at his hip and you can't tell at all unless you know precisely where to look. Of course Harold knows where to look because he'd chosen the jacket, he'd had it _made_ to move in precisely that way and he'd held it out for John to put on this evening before they'd left. He dresses John these days; he's not sure when that began. Harold watches the tiny movement and, though he doesn't love the gun, he finds he loves knowing this secret. It feels like a secret about John's body, known only to the two of them, and that is, well, it's something.

The show he'd put on in the conference hall had done its work. People were looking at him like, like–

John murmurs, "Not enjoying the attention, Finch? Shoulda held back a little this afternoon." John's voice changes a little. "Hey, what did you pull in there anyway? We can't attract too much–"

Harold smiles tightly. "It's nothing. It's old actually–a decade old idea I had; it looks impressive but it's flawed; it won't scale. They'll see it eventually."

John is shaking his head. "Well I'd say Mr Rivera is the envy of every investor here." He presses a hand to the small of Harold's back and guides him to a table. "Let's hope they don't see it too soon. I think I kind of like having the biggest brain in the trophy cabinet."

Ms Higson taps him on the shoulder and Harold turns with a smile to speak with her. He likes this woman; she has a sharpness of thought he admires. They're close to neutralizing the threat against her and he will probably never meet her again, so he takes the time to talk. She has interesting ideas about fractal trees. Wrong, but interesting.

The ballroom fills up. At least half the people here wear their tuxedos like sweatpants. The other half wear their ball gowns like sweatpants. It's a little disheartening. People incessantly interrupt them to praise him, and to test him, which he dislikes and does not know how to deflect. Harold answers their questions after a fashion: heavy on the jargon, vague on the details. His role here is to be a trophy geek, to be the brains on the arm of the software tycoon, to support John's cover with his, he rolls his eyes, mad skills. He should not deflect.

He should shine. Oh he feels too old for this. 

The lights overhead are colored; they shift hues according to some pattern he can't quite follow. Ms Higson notices him looking and says, "They're complimenting the gowns, do you see?" She points to the tiny red on-lights; there are cameras fitted into the lightbulbs. "They sampleImage and generate harmonic triads."

"Well, every little helps," he says blandly. In his head he idly begins calculating the data load of that many new video inputs. Behind Ms Higson a man is approaching with a grin like a shark. Harold suppresses a sigh. He really doesn't want to be here.

He turns his head; John is across the floor engaging in some kind of pissing contest with four men old enough to know better. Frankly, Harold thinks, their _suits_ are old enough to know better. John is smiling, but it's a fake: his lips are pulled across his teeth; his teeth are almost bared. It's so intensely yet covertly aggressive that Harold jerks upright and makes his way over before he even thinks about it. He walks as quickly as he can, cursing the polished ballroom floor, then hesitates. Harold puts a hand out and touches John on the arm. He says, "John?" 

He doesn't normally touch John. Touches flow all one way between them. Harold watches with interest the way John relaxes minutely into the contact.

"Are you ready to go?" John says, and he's dragging Harold off the dance floor before he has a chance to reply.

"Good to meet you," Harold calls drily over his shoulder.

To John he says, "Has there been a development? Is Ms Higson in danger?" They've reached the thick carpets of the lobby now and Harold's heel drags a little across the pile. "John, slow down."

John does; he stops in fact, and punches the elevator button with his thumb. He looks tight about the mouth still. 

Harold says mildly, "And here I thought you liked being the one _with_ the arm candy for once."

"You didn't like it," John explains.

They stand in the elevator like strangers going to different floors.

He can sense there's a charge in the air. He can see the tracks of anger and arousal in John's face. But Harold isn't so great with whys. It's not an instinct he has. He perceives the face value, the _whats_ of people, pretty well: if you can graph it he can grasp it, but motivations aren't always so easily captured. He built the most advanced system in the world to put a glass to these mysteries but he's no closer to the answer. Harold can predict almost perfectly _what_ people will do so he, perhaps more than anyone, knows exactly how little he knows about _why_ they do anything.

He's really interested in why.

The elevator opens at their suite and John opens the door for him. The suite has huge windows, floor to ceiling, and in the corner of his eye he sees their reflections as they stand behind the couch, sees more clearly the unhappy set of John's shoulders. 

"What is the matter?" he says. His voice rings oddly in his ears. He sounds cold, he thinks. Peremptory.

John says only, "They shouldn't have looked at you like that. You're not a toy."

Harold shrugs. "I don't much care how these people look at me. They're strangers. Their opinions are–"

"Irrelevant?" John says. 

"I don't care for that word," Harold says after a moment. "But I suppose so, yes."

"And what about my opinion?" John mumbles it. He looks out past Harold, and Harold follows his gaze into the view of the city laid out and lit up like a fabulous fantasy circuit board.

"I do care for that," Harold says firmly. "Very much."

And he's said that before; they've had these exchanges before where there's a charge in the air that could only be resolved in one way. But Harold has never allowed...has never dared to allow the resolution. He knows that John will never make this move. He has always known the way this power is balanced, though he can't begin to understand why. 

So Harold touches John on his jaw, where the tightness is; his hand is shaking a little but he presses onward. "What would happen, Mr Reese, if I kissed you now?" Harold says it like it's a puzzle he's been turning over and he thinks in a way that's right. Yes: that's the problem he's been graphing out since they met.


	2. Perfect Equilibrium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He exposes himself deliberately, fearlessly.

(He knows what will happen. He knows John will not refuse him anything. He does not understand it.)

John turns his head into Harold's hand, rests against his cupped palm. And he looks at Harold very steadily; his face is open. He exposes himself, deliberately, fearlessly.

Harold stares back; he freezes. Harold has never given all of himself to another person. There is nobody alive who has even his whole name. He takes away his hand, quickly, snatches it, and walks around the couch to sit down. He takes off his jacket and folds it neatly over an armchair. It's Mr Finch's habit.

"When I met you," he says. "I had quite given up hope."

He turns his head and John, with a shuttered awful look now, follows him. John moves silently, a shadow, and when he drops into the cushions Harold is faintly surprised to feel the movement.

They sit side by side, facing out, as they do on their bench out by the 59th Street bridge. 

John says quietly, "You gave me hope."

But Harold can't have that from him. He won't accept that. It's quite quite wrong. John is a candle. It's so essential to his nature Harold is shocked that he doesn't seem to know. Even on the street John had built a kind of home, found some kind of family. John loves and hopes endlessly.

He shakes his head. He says, "The trembling hand."

John looks at him mutely. His eyes are shining. Harold can tell though he fixes his gaze straight ahead. John is a blur at the edge of his vision.

"I didn't intend to play this strategy," he explains. And then he realizes that is no explanation at all and he drops his head into his hands and groans.

John says, "You know what would happen. Are you afraid? I'm not."

John is endlessly brave. Harold is filled with admiration. He can imagine the look on John's face: the unshed tears, the clenched jaw, the flutter in his throat. He had long had the habit of averting his eyes from displays of emotion, but with John, secretly, he looked. He had done it as a kindness, he had thought; to spare John from the disgrace of it, but now he thinks in a hot rush that this was a wicked lie. The worst kind of lie: a lie to the self.

"But either way, this is it for me." John says. "You're stuck with me, Finch."

He says it like a burden but Harold hears it like a gift. He reaches out again, and this time he is braver. He pulls John towards him; he holds his gaze. John's breath is coming in little hitching gasps and Harold leans in and kisses him, slow and deep. 

John's mouth is hot, mobile; John kisses like he does everything: with total commitment. Harold rakes his fingers through John's hair and John presses him backwards into the sofa with a soft thunk. John sits back on his heels and drags, featherlight, his thumb over Harold's bottom lip. The delicate rasp of the whorled pad of his thumb rakes up a shiver that runs straight to Harold's groin.

He catches John's hand in his own and John stills, waiting; he has a kind of alert peacefulness about him that is hard to–and then Harold sees it: he is leashed. Harold is lying on the couch, his head against the arm and John is kneeling above him, his strong legs caging Harold's hips. He is suddenly, overwhelmingly aware of the power of John's body, of the solid packed muscle and the speed with which he could move. All this, Harold thinks, and you yield to me.

He drags John to him and kisses him hungrily. He feels drunk with it. He says recklessly against John's mouth, "You are mine. Do not doubt it." And it should be cheesy; should be the worst kind of cliche but John lets out a kind of half sob and nods his head and Harold feels a glorious soaring inside him: a bright light, a ringing bell.

John is kissing him, pressing hundreds of kisses to his mouth, his jaw, pressing his face into Harold's neck. And now Harold is at sea. He is lost, unmoored, drowning in sensation. John is above him and around him, kissing him and running his hands up and down his body like he, Harold, was something wonderful, someone to be desired.

He groans. He's half hard. He jerks his hips and John grins wickedly and grinds down against him in a slow, deliberate circle. Harold's breath hitches. He looks at John and nods. John's grin broadens. John says in his deep, husky voice, "Tell me what you want. I'll do what you want."

Harold swallows. He says, "Skin. I want your skin against mine." He tugs John's shirt out of his pants as John's clever fingers unbutton his own. John tosses both their shirts over the back of the couch and he shucks his pants with one hand. John reaches for Harold's button but he shakes his head and says with sudden inspiration, "No. Leave mine on."

John is utterly, thrillingly turned on by this idea and it shows as he sits back down over Harold. He's naked; he's totally naked: his glorious body is totally available, laid out on a plate. His beautiful cock is hard and he rubs it against Harold's pants and Harold feels the heat of him through wool, feels the roll of John's balls, feels John's ass grinding against cloth and he gets achingly hard himself. His cock strains and throbs against his fly.

He's breathing faster; John is too. They look at each other and John's face is a shout of joy. John is rolling his hips and Harold grinds into the motion; the slide and grind of their cocks sensitized further by the rasp of wool and silk between them. He's close; he's almost there and he wants– Harold says urgently, "Now, John. Come now." And John thrusts his wonderful body, all the beautiful planes of his chest down onto Harold, crushes the breath out of him. Harold can feel John everywhere: the sear of skin against skin, the slide of sensation that awakens every nerve to pure pleasure, pure heat, and as he presses his mouth to John's, John comes with a choked, "Oh God." 

There's come, John's come, on his pants, soaking onto his cock as it smears over John's belly, and for some reason that makes him wild, takes him higher. He is riding a wave of euphoria, revelling in these new discoveries. John is so eloquent with his body. He is elegant as an algorithm. Harold had never grasped, had never imagined the depth and subtlety of this expression. John face is turned into Harold's neck and Harold whispers to him, "Take me out. Just take out my cock and put it in your mouth."

John's eyes go glassy. He nods quickly, eagerly. He scoots down the couch and noses at Harold's crotch. He undoes the fly and Harold's cock jerks, his balls tighten, as John's firm hand grips around the base, as John's mouth, his brilliant talented mouth, closes around it. Harold stretches his hand down and hooks his fingers into John's hair. John's mouth is all hot, wet pressure; suction. John flutters his tongue and swallows Harold deeper, deeper. He makes a muffled begging sound and then Harold is fucking John's mouth desperately, almost heedlessly, and John just takes him, takes him. John is–the only word is hungry; he takes Harold's cock deep into his mouth and then he moans, a long satisfied moan as Harold thrusts upwards, his hips jerking crazily, stuttering, as Harold comes in a blinding flash that crashes his brain, that dumbfounds him.

He clasps John to him, gasping, laughing. He feels brilliant; he feels exceptional. They are exceptional together and this was so far beyond, outside of, his predictions he thinks he was a fool, a craven idiot, to have denied them both this until now.

*

Later, much later, John will slip out of their bed and Harold will watch him lacing his shoes. He will sit forward and press one hand to John's broad back. John will pause and tip his head to look back at Harold. "Is it wrong," John will say, "to be so glad?"

**Author's Note:**

> This prompt also filled by Killalla with [Trophy Husband](http://archiveofourown.org/works/754291)!


End file.
